Michael A. Smith
MPSA’s Top 10 Blog Posts from 2018
As the calendar year begins to wind down, we take a look back at our most-read articles from 2018. We encourage you to take a quiet moment for another look as you may have missed an article or may simply enjoy the re-read. Please take a moment to share what you would like to see more of in the new…
The Only Thing We Have to Fear
By Michael A. Smith of Emporia State University Senator and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey‘s nickname was The Happy Warrior. He worked tirelessly on behalf of causes he championed, and usually seemed joyful when doing so, even though he lived through and served during one of the most divisive…
Save the Swamp
By Michael A. Smith of Emporia State University The Trump Administration’s recent reversal on immigration policy regarding children has gotten me to thinking. What exactly does it mean to “drain the swamp?” First, let me share a bit of background about the current situation. In 1997, a court ruling…
More Bridging, Less Bonding: New Views of Social Capital
(or, Why I am Going to Watch Roseanne) by Michael A. Smith of Emporia State University Social capital has been a popular concept in political science, at least since the publication of Almond and Verba’s classic book The Civic Culture in 1963. The idea waned for a while, then came roaring back in…
The New Political Scientists—We’re Live, We’re Nationwide, and We’re Online
By Michael A. Smith, Professor of Political Science at Emporia State University On the first day of the Midwest Political Science Conference (#MPSA18 on Twitter), I spotted both a roundtable and a vendor booth on the same topic: using Wikipedia in the classroom. That’s right—Wikipedia may be…
What George Washington Really Meant About Political Parties -- and Why It Matters
By Michael A. Smith of Emporia State University Did George Washington really hate political parties? For our first president’s 286th birthday, it is time for historians to set the record straight. For political scientists, a nuanced view of Washington’s stand helps us understand the modern-day…
MPSA's Top 10 Blog Posts from 2017
There is no doubt that 2017 was a memorable year in political science. As the year comes to a close, it’s time to take a look back at our the most-read blog posts from the past twelve months. #10 Alone and Working: Making the Transition to ABD Harold Young and Adnan Rasool share lessons from…
More Guns, Less Replication: The Case for Robust Research Findings
The meaning of the word “replication” hardly seems like the sort of thing that would land a person in court. Yet, it did. In Lott v. Levitt (2009), the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois ruled on that very question, in a dispute between two academic authors of bestselling books. In his book…
The Loss Lab
“Trump was an alternative to interchangeable robots whose goal is to avoid saying anything interesting.” - Molly Ball, political reporter, The Atlantic “If you wanted to write a playbook for how to lose an election, Trump did that and he won anyway.” - Steve Peoples, AP reporter What rotten luck…
Election 2016: Did New Voting Laws Tip the Balance?
Since the early 2000s, a flurry of new voting laws have passed in the states. There is a marked Democrat-Republican divide. Democratic-leaning states, such as California, Oregon, and Massachusetts, have passed laws making access to the ballot easier. Oregon now automatically registers citizens to…